Among the socialist promoters, Associazione Coscioni, Sinistra and Più Europa. You can join the banquets in the squares, in the municipalities and by lawyers
UDINE. They consider Beppino Englaro, who waged a very long judicial battle in the name of his daughter Eluana, a precursor of the debate on the end of life and on the self-determination of the individual. And they see Loris Fortuna, the lawyer from Udine, father of the law on divorce, as the first who in Italy, in 1984, brought the question of passive euthanasia to public attention.
Today the new challenge, launched by heteronegean groups of civil society (with the support, among the parties, only of Movimento Cinque Stelle and Open Sinistra Fvg) is the campaign to collect signatures for the referendum partially abrogating article 579 of the criminal code deposited last April by the Coscioni association and which sees numerous movements and associations among its promoters. The contact persons for the province of Udine, the socialist lawyer Andrea Castiglione and the representative of the Coscioni Association Raffaella Barbieri, illustrated the reasons for the referendum as well as the methods of collecting the 500,000 signatures required to be completed by 30 September. “Free until the end” is the slogan of the campaign for legal euthanasia. «The first banquet in Trieste – said Barbieri – in just one afternoon collected 223 signatures, an important result. In Udine we will leave next weekend or the following one, it depends on the recruitment of volunteers and on the authorizations for the spaces. Then as we go forward we will “expand” to the most important centers of the province, such as Codroipo or Tolmezzo, while in August we will be in the main seaside resorts, let’s think of Lignano and Grado ».
During the press conference, Castiglione recalled the acceleration imposed by the well-known sentence of the Constitutional Court on the Dj Fabo case, which opened up the possibility, on certain criteria, of discerning the hypothesis of aid to suicide for subjects suffering from irreversible pathologies and suffering not tolerable, kept alive with medical and mechanical aids and with full capacity for determination. The sentence, however very important, does not cover the cases of those who are not kept alive by vital supports, such as cancer patients, and patients who are unable to end their existence alone, because they are totally immobilized. Hence the importance of a resolving legislative intervention, stimulated several times by the Constitutional Court and never intervened by the Italian Parliament and which in the current conditions risks being postponed for several years. In fact, already in 2013, a popular law initiative on the issue was filed, which has always remained in the drawers of the various Commissions and has never seen the light, despite 8 years have passed. “The referendum – added the promoter lawyer – in addition to opening the possibility of a decent end of life even for those subjects who do not fall within the criteria identified by the Constitutional Court, has the aim of stimulating a prompt intervention by the legislator who identifies precise rules that allow self-determination and freedom of choice in terms of end of life. Certainly no liberalization of murder, but precise rules in respect of life, including its final phase, and of the dignity of the person ».
Representatives of some of the promoters also intervened (Più Europa, Sinistra Italiana, Associazione Volt) who underlined that the objective of the law is to abolish the crime of murder of the consenting party, as happened in the case of Dj Fabo. Raffaella Barbieri then announced the establishment of a Facebook group and activities on Instagram to update the citizens of Friuli Venezia Giulia on the collection of signatures and possibly to answer specific questions. «In addition to the banquets – said Barbieri – it will be possible to sign in the municipalities of the region and also in the offices of lawyers who will be able to do the authentications independently. A public debate or a specific event to raise awareness among the population could also be organized by September ».
Only next week will we have proof of how Udine will welcome the referendum initiative. The themes of the end of life, as it is known, are particularly delicate for the Friulian capital and for some they represent an uncovered nerve, in particular after the story that saw Udine as the final stage, at Quiete, of Eluana’s death, on 9 February 2009. At the time a real war broke out between in favor (among them historical socialist exponents such as Tondo, Saro and Renzulli) and against, which also touched the presidency of the Republic and Prime Minister Berlusconi. There were vigils and principals in front of the gates of the Quiet of those, coming from half of Italy, who did not want the interruption of the forced feeding for Eluana. The woman died on the evening of February 9 12 years ago and since then silence has fallen on her story. The young woman of Carnic origin (at the time of her death she was 38 years old), was the victim of a car accident 17 years earlier, which brought her into a vegetative state.